Leo Tolstoy’s observation that “each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” is once again proven true in this novel. The sources of the Mason family’s unhappiness are many: unrealized dreams, overwork, spouses who drift apart, infidelity, a traumatized child. Penny Mason, a surgeon in Chapel Hill, thinks that a summer at the family lake house will provide a healing environment for her and her family. The lake house used to be her safe place, but something at the house has changed–and not just because her husband Paul has made extensive renovations to the old place. Penny begins to have vivid, bloody nightmares, and her husband and daughter hear strange things and see a mysterious woman. This ghost has her own sad and bloody history. As the Masons research the house, they learn about two earlier families and the connections across the ages that in the end redeem them all.